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The concept of a home-centered church is really nothing new. In his 1993 book Raising Up a Family To the Lord, Elder Gene R. Cook establishes such a mindset in the first several pages, as a foundation for the rest of the book. This excerpt shows how he conceived of the concept, and it’s very much what’s being endorsed today.

I’ve always been impressed that this amazing book came out two years before the Proclamation on the Family. My wife and I are going to re-read it in preparation for 2019. To anyone looking for ideas and encouragement for making home the core of your family’s church life, I strongly recommend it!

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School started in the middle of August here in Clark County, so September represented most of the year so far–a heinously busy time when I’m swamped by learning hundreds of new names and trying to establish a solid foundation for the rest of the year. I often get sick near the start of a school year, and this year was no different–I’ve had bronchitis for a few weeks now (though I’m getting much better).

This is all to explain (though not excuse) my relative lack of progress in the last month. Despite how far I am into most of the remaining goals, I only finished two since last time.

That leaves me with seven to go, and while I probably could push through and finish, I’m not sure I want to. Doing so would be stressful, and while these activities have been very valuable to me, cramming so much into the last month seems arbitrary, if not destructive. I don’t want to punish myself, or come to hate these things. I’ll gladly give myself an extension, just as I’ve felt free to modify goals as the year has gone on.

So I only expect to finish a few more, and do the rest maybe by the end of the year. And I’m happy with that. And isn’t that what matters here?

Here’s the two I finished in September:

REVISED: Wrestle or play chess with my kids 40 times. I revised this from just wrestling to adding another activity that we could bond over and which would be good for the kids, largely because wrestling in the hot summer is such a drag. I taught two of my daughters to play, though neither of them loves it like my two sons at home do–we all still play frequently, and I usually lose now (and I’m really trying to win!). This has been extremely rewarding all around.

REVISED: Do push ups for 40 straight days. Originally this said “40 push ups in a set,” which was odd–it didn’t match the ethos of most other goals. I changed it to this much more rational version (besides, I could never get further than the low 30’s in a single set!). My fitness habits tend to rotate back and forth between running and weights–mostly depending on what’s injured when–but because of my running goal for this project, I’ve ignored weights for months. This goal didn’t help as much as I’d hoped it would–after 40 days of (often lackluster) push up sets, the only real difference is that I got slightly better at doing push ups. *sigh* Back to the gym…

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My wife and I drove up to Provo Friday with our 12-year old and 13-year-old to attend this awesome conference. Thanks to our friends who watched our three youngest kids while we went, and thanks to Book of Mormon Central for organization such an amazing, enjoyable, educational event. Not only did we hear from several great teachers, but we got to take a tour of Herod’s temple with virtual reality headsets, see some museum displays about metal plates from Roman times and a Bedouin tent, the kids got to meet John Bytheway, and they even gave us lunch! :)

Here are my notes:

Matt Roper & Paul Fields: Abinadi to Zenos: 28 Speakers in the Book of Mormon

But when that ends, and reality comes crashing down, it’s sad how quickly they scramble to validate the feminist lives they’ve led by simply telling themselves more lies. 40 is the new 20! Test-tube babies! MILF’s and Cougars! When, frankly, it just means nobody’s visiting you in a nursing home in the end.

And when I read that, I remembered Jack. That’s not his real name; I forgot his real name.

My dad died last July, and in the two months leading up to it, he made the rounds of a few hospital rooms and convalescent homes. In one, his bed was in a room with Jack, their areas separated by a curtain. Whenever I went to visit Dad, Jack would invariably interject himself into the visit, speaking up through the curtain, or even wheeling himself around it if he could get into his wheelchair.

He wasn’t a bad guy, but his desperate loneliness made him aggressive. Sometimes my dad would yell at him for horning in on his time with his family. He openly longed for attention. I tried to talk to him for a bit on each visit, though he clearly wanted more.

Once, when he’d asked if I had kids, he seemed joyously surprised at the total. I asked the same of him, and he scowled.

“No, never wanted them. Never liked them.”

The irony was sickening. Here was an old man who had chosen not to have any descendants, and now he was desperately lonely as he died.

As birth rates continue to drop, as our civilizational death spiral swings on, this scenario will become more common. In fact, it will explode exponentially. Soon, our nursing homes will be a bursting industry filled will dying invalids who never wanted to make a family, and who may bemoan their loneliness and dependence on strangers.

Contrast this with my wife’s grandfather, who had an army of three generations ready to care for him after a stroke.

If you’re a young person looking for a stable career, look into elder care. The 21st century will give you fantastic job security.

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Back in my 20s, when I had three children, I knew a fellow teacher who had five children. I thought that was a lot, and wasn’t sure how he or I anybody could handle it.

But now, my seven children seem like no big deal.

Part of that is because they’re mine and familiar–we always get acclimated to the changes in our lives, and whatever the status quo is becomes normal. My family doesn’t even seem large to me–it’s just what it is, so that’s average.

Part of it is how well I know them. Obviously, I’ve known them their whole lives. I’ve seen their personalities develop and change, so I don’t and can’t see them as mere burdens or responsibilities–they’re just seven smaller, younger people who I happen to know and love. Don’t you know and love a bunch of people? It’s no big deal.

One part of my lifestyle that I never get fully acclimated to, though, is just how much love a big family creates. It surprises me every day. Since the kids all have different ages and personalities themselves, having seven children isn’t just having the same family member seven times, it’s seven different loves. I’m blessed with a life that truly fills up a whole heart.

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When my dad passed away last July at the age of 87, there were no public memorials or vigils. No graveside scenes or heartfelt eulogies, because there wasn’t even a funeral. Not even an obit in the newspaper.

Intensely private people, my parents wanted it this way. Hardly anyone knew my dad, and even fewer really got to know him. But there’s something the world should know.

He’s exactly the kind of hero our world needs today. He did something truly amazing, something that raises him far above the average man in my eyes. Something a man does, that most all of us have forgotten how to do.

My dad had already raised a family to young adulthood when his first wife passed away in the early 1970s. A few years later, in his late 40s, he met my mom and they decided not only to get married, but to start a family together.

Stop and think about that. My dad had already raised three children up to adulthood, and had had his wife pass away. He was solidly middle aged. And he was done–his years as a family man were done.

And then he started all over.

He raised my mom’s young son from her first marriage, and he and my mom had two sons of their own–my brother and I. Do the math–he was actively raising children almost non-stop until he was nearly 70.

I mentioned this to my mom recently, and she said that he never regretted it. Never complained. Never looked back. He committed to doing it all again and he gave it 100%–helped take care of us as babies, worked the side jobs to make ends meet, squeezed in time to attend our activities, and all past the age when most men are done.

Or when many men, these days, haven’t ever started. In a society that increasingly idolizes childlessness, he raised not just one, but two families, back to back. His entire adult life was dominated by fatherhood.

Once, when I was an angry teen, he thanked me for letting him have another chance in life. I wasn’t sure what he meant and, being an angry teen, didn’t care. Now, as a middle aged father of 7 myself, I understand perfectly.

He was a total hero, the kind that songs and movies are about, the quiet middle class guy just doing what really needs to be done, with no one forcing him to and with no applause when it got tough.

He didn’t just do what so many today aren’t willing to do, he did it twice. With all his heart.

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The first epilogue of War and Peace is itself a long section of narrative, but one that most all other stories lack: what happens after “happily ever after?” Our heroes Pierre and Natasha have survived Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and finally, after over 1000 pages, have married.

But then Tolstoy gives us 16 more chapters about their early years of family life together (along with the lives of their friends and their marriages). In these chapters, Tolstoy unabashedly preaches what he thinks an ideal home life should be. The degree of anti-political correctness here makes me wonder that no sensitive snowflakes have demanded it banned.

Here’s the most instructive of those chapters, chapter 10, with ten headings I’ve added to illustrate Tolstoy’s points, and some highlighting of especially radical (read: old fashioned) ideas.

IN PRAISE OF THE PHYSICAL CHANGES IN YOUNG MOTHERS

Natasha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natasha of former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft, and serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm. Now her face and body were of all that one saw, and her soul was not visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home, or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined was jealous of Prince Andrew’s memory), or on the rare occasions when something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire did kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more attractive than in former days.

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I enjoy a good horror movie, but I hardly ever see any. I avoid excess in gore, profanity, and nudity: all things in which horror loves to overindulge. Besides that, though, most horror movies just aren’t very good. Is there another genre in which the worthwhile-to-garbage ratio is so high?

So imagine my joy to hear about The Babadook, last year’s Australian indie hit. I recommend it here not only because it passes the tests of my above criteria, but because it’s simply a wonderful film, period.

Start with the lead. On the strength of this performance, she should get a slew of Hollywood offers now. If this film had been made in Hollywood, she’d’ve been up for an Oscar.

Movies are full of struggling single moms, but I’ve never seen one look so legitimately haggard. Plenty of reviews have noted that this is a film about the persistence of grief, and they’re right.

But in our heroine’s beleaguered existence lies more than grief. She’s a nearly all-encompassing conduit of suburban social ills: regret, shame, ostracism, inadequacy…who can’t relate to some aspect of her plight? I’ve never seen the harsher strains of parenthood portrayed so bracingly.

Quick thoughts from the Hardings, homeschooling parents of ten who have sent seven kids to college by age 12.

Recently found this silly video I made for a class I was taking two years ago. Amusing.

Instapundit nails it: the humanities lost relevance when they decided to preach that nothing has intrinsic value. It’s been my experience that students (yes, even at-risk, underprivileged minorities!) appreciate the classics. Everybody likes the egalitarian ideal of participation in the uniting, universal canon, rather than manufactured niche curricula that only panders to trends.

Cute chart collects insults from famous authors who hated each other’s work.

Fascinating memoir of writing the script for Star Trek: Insurrection. Included here because it shares so much about that specific writing craft. Also, Insurrection is often over-maligned—it is not great, but not nearly as bad as many say. This long essay shows how it could have been great.

1. A young man struggles with his work at school because his divorced mother has a hard time getting him to school. His father tries to facilitate contact with the teachers and get his work made up, but it’s just too overwhelming. Despite the student loving his school and wanting to thrive there, he ends up having to switch schools in the middle of the year.

2. A young woman is very successful at school, until her mother starts hitting her in fights. The student has to move in with her aunt and, like the young man above, switch schools in the middle of the year, losing a leadership position at the school she’d attended for years.

3. A young woman has difficulty focusing on maintaining her grades while her mother has to move their family frequently to avoid her father, a drug user who, since getting out of jail, is harassing them.

Cherry-picked worst-case scenarios from over the years to make a point? I wish. I saw all three of these things happen in just the last two months.

Family structure and stability are so crucial to success. That’s common sense, and it’s also supported by mountains of research. Still, we don’t talk about it anymore because it might be inconvenient for some adults, or hurt our feelings, or be politically incorrect. And kids just keep paying the price for it…

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When I once asked, “Is there any combination of consenting adults you *wouldn’t* accept as a marriage?” only one of my more liberal acquaintances really addressed the question with a substantive response. He said he wouldn’t support legalizing polygamous unions because of the confusion they would create.

He was absolutely right, but this is another example of how social progressives must not have truly examined the likely consequences of changing the definition of marriage, because such a reality will absolutely be the actual result of where our society is going.

Also that year, a bill was introduced in California to allow children to have more than two legal parents. The bill made it all the way to the governor before being vetoed. Obviously, such an outcome is inevitable if same-sex marriage is sanctioned.

“Fatherless families were also at least partly responsible for a national breakdown in authority and rising levels of crime. My view was backed in 1992 when three influential social scientists with impeccable Left-wing pedigrees produced a damning report. From their research, they concluded that children in fractured families tend to suffer more ill-health, do less well at school, are more likely to be unemployed, more prone to criminal behaviour and to repeat as adults the same cycle of unstable parenting. But instead of welcoming this analysis as identifying a real problem, the Left turned on the authors, branding them as evil Right-wingers for being ‘against single mothers’.” Melanie Philips, “Why the Left hates families: MELANIE PHIILLIPS reveals how the selfish sneers of Guardianistas made her see how the Left actively fosters – and revels in – family breakdown…“

“I have been told that being hard on you Millennials will turn you against conservatism, that I should offer you a positive, hopeful message that avoids the touchy problem of your manifest stupidity. No. There’s no sugar-coating it – your votes for Democrats have ensured that you are the first generation in American history that will fail to exceed what their parents attained. Embracing liberalism was a stupid thing to do, done for the stupidest of reasons, and I will now let you subsidize my affluent lifestyle without a shred of guilt.” Kurt Schlichter, “Maybe Pain Will Teach You Millenials Not To Vote For Your Own Serfdom“

The most common assumption today is that if someone doesn’t agree with changing the definition of marriage to include gay couples, it’s because they’re ignorant and hate gay people. That’s wrong. So assuming that someone who disagrees with you must be evil and stupid does not help make the world a better place. It’s divisive and cruel. It’s also an ad hominem attack and a straw man argument that should be beneath all of us. I’m not going to make the case for traditional marriage here. There’s something basic that needs to be done first.

I want to make five main points today:

First: Society doesn’t work well when we misrepresent people we disagree with. We have to give each other the benefit of the doubt.

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As a follow-up to last week’s bit about sick kids, here’s this: it’s surprising just how many kids out there have lost parents. In some cases, both.

This last school year, I had three students whose mothers have died. There may be more; those are just the ones I know of. Another student had lost his father. They’re holding up well, all things considered.

Especially in poverty-heavy areas, students are likely to be raised by someone other than a parent. Grandparents raising kids isn’t uncommon. About ten years ago, I knew a girl who was being raised by her great-grandparents. Each of her parents, at different times, had just decided to skip town and go enjoy life. She wasn’t stable.

Also not uncommon are single moms who can’t handle their sullen, violent sons, and who ship the boys off to live with dad to straighten them out. It usually seems like too little, too late.

Variations on family failure just find different ways to hurt kids. I once had a student whose father molested her. I actually met him at a parent conference once, and never would have guessed it, though I don’t know what the signs would have been. After he was arrested, she withdrew because of the shame and ended up moving away.

Another year there was a class with a young woman who had been crippled in an attack that also killed her little sister, a tragedy instigated by a drug deal her mom was involved in and which went sour. That one had a happy ending: she got adopted by a great family who loved her.